There’s a side to Carter Henderson he admits some people might think is “a little nerdy.” But for the man who came from #NerdNation at Stanford, it might just be on-brand for the trendy and gregarious Cal Poly athletic director.
He’s an absolute film nerd.
He admits there isn’t much time for films with a day job that eventually bleeds into night, but his journalism degree from Florida, paired with an outside concentration in film studies, helps explain how he thinks about the work now in front of him.
Narratives. Storylines. Storytelling. Branding.
Those words were not throwaways in a conversation with Henderson. They were the connective tissue of his vision for Mustang athletics.
At Cal Poly, Henderson is not simply trying to win games, raise money, or chase whatever the next national college athletics trend becomes. He is trying to shape a story that lasts.
Henderson began as Cal Poly’s director of athletics on Oct. 13, 2025, after nearly five years at Stanford. Before that came a decade at Washington and his first full-time athletics stop at Jacksonville University.
His path to the chair began in Jacksonville, Florida, in a sports family. His grandfather played basketball at Florida. His father and grandfather both coached high school basketball.
That environment helped him see what college athletics could be. It also helped him understand what he wanted from it.
“I’m really not in the sports business,” Henderson said. “I’m in the human development business.”
Sports, he said, are the how, not the what.
That philosophy followed him throughout his career. It also shaped his decision to be selective about becoming an athletic director. His family was doing well in Palo Alto. He did not need to jump at just any opportunity.
“We were in a really good spot in Palo Alto,” Henderson said. “I was in a great spot, too. I’m bullish on Stanford and under John Donahoe’s leadership.”
That made Cal Poly a choice, not just a next step.
Henderson said he was looking for three things: a president who understood the value athletics could deliver to the institution, a place with a real commitment to the scholar-athlete mission, and a job where he believed something special could be built.
“I really fundamentally believe the educational piece, and the degree component is such a value add for what we’re trying to do,” Henderson said.
Cal Poly won a high number of conference championships, a quantity Henderson is quick to point out few Division I departments can match. At the same time, he is candid about the Mustangs’ recent challenges in the department’s “highest-visibility sports,” particularly football and men’s basketball.
“I wanted to be at a place I felt like we could do some really special things and grow,” Henderson said. “We have built-in advantages, and beyond our high visibility sports, we won 11 conference championships. I don’t think there are many, if any other schools in Division I that can say that.”
The trick now is to elevate those programs without damaging what already works.
That is where Henderson’s organizational side kicks in. The film nerd is also a systems guy.
He has notebooks, dozens of them, organized by month, coded with colors and structured with the kind of detail that could make a meeting attendee wonder what exactly is happening across the table. He can go back years and find the notes.
“It’s a little ridiculous,” Henderson laughed. “But again, I do think it’s all in the heart and spirit of, you have to be pretty rigorous about building the systems to contain the operations within that 85%.”
That 85% matters because Henderson wants to protect the other 15% for strategy, vision, and scenario planning.
“I think most athletic departments fall short of their full potential for one of two reasons: either they never develop a clear strategic vision for where they want to go, or they do, but the complexities and demands of the operation overwhelm their ability to execute it,” Henderson said.
In other words, the big plan is to have the big plan.
Every good director needs a script, a crew, and a production schedule before the lights come up.
Henderson also has not been afraid to bring in people with serious experience. Cal Poly’s executive team includes Jackson Stava, the deputy athletic director who was a sitting athletic director at Seattle Pacific before returning to his San Luis Obispo County roots, and Uri Farkas, the senior associate athletic director for development who was the athletic director at Northern Arizona before coming to SLO.
That is unusual depth for a department of Cal Poly’s profile. Henderson believes it is necessary.
“Our executive leadership team is scary good,” Henderson said.
That group is now working through how Cal Poly can prepare for what Henderson believes could be transformational growth over the next few years.
Part of that opportunity is tied to the national football landscape. Henderson has spent significant time studying FCS football and is especially curious about what happens next with the Group of Six in the FBS.
“By most metrics, the top tier of FCS football looks a lot more like the bottom tier of FBS than the bottom tier of FBS looks like Ohio State,” Henderson said.
For Cal Poly, that creates questions but not panic. Henderson admits things were different for him in Palo Alto.
“I bring a lot of scar tissue from my previous life into this role,” Henderson said. “I was at Stanford, and we were out in the wilderness for a couple weeks, and so I am on the far end of the paranoia spectrum about conference realignment.”
Still, Henderson is confident Cal Poly’s current alignment is the right one: Big West membership for most sports, Big Sky football, and Pac-12 affiliations in men’s soccer and wrestling.
“We feel very strongly that our current conference alignment, in terms of being primary Big West members with affiliate membership for football in the Big Sky and for men’s soccer and wrestling in the Pac-12, is very clearly the best alignment for us at this time,” Henderson said.
So what is next?
The John Madden Center is a major piece of the future. Henderson called it “an absolute game changer,” both operationally and in recruiting.
“You can’t be in that building and not understand that Cal Poly is serious about winning in football,” Henderson said. “It’s just a first-class facility that sends a really strong signal.”
But for someone who says “Hoosiers” is “empirically the best movie ever made,” Henderson also knows a building alone does not make the program. The coach, the locker room, and the belief inside it still matter.
That is why the story is not only about football. It is also about protecting the Mustang stable, pun very much intended as Henderson joked while adjusting his AirPods in excitement.
Henderson smiled as he spoke about the department’s value.
“I think head coaches are the thing in college sports,” Henderson said. “I’ve always believed the most valuable contribution an athletic director can make to an athletic department is the head coaches that he or she decides to bring in and hire.”
At Cal Poly, he has been impressed not only by their competitive ability but by their alignment with the school’s broader values. He pointed to women’s volleyball as one example. The Mustangs reached the Sweet 16 and retained every player with no one entering the transfer portal.
“As a mid-major, it’s unbelievable,” Henderson said. “There are players leaving significant immediate economic benefit on the table so that they could come stay here and play for our coaching staff again.”
To borrow from another film classic, where Henderson is going, he may not need roads, but he is clearly bringing the past with him.
Henderson’s past still shows up in the way he thinks about Cal Poly’s future.
He once wrote a college paper connecting “Citizen Kane,” William Randolph Hearst, and journalism history. Years later, he found himself at a fundraiser near Hearst Castle, admittedly more excited than everyone else in the room.
“I was geeking out to the max about this,” Henderson said. “Everybody’s like, you’re irrationally excited about the Hearst Castle.”
Maybe that is the journalism major or film student in him. Maybe it is just the athletic director who sees connections where others see trivia.
“I always love the power of story and how it can impact commerce,” Henderson said. “We’re all building a story. We’re helping our students build identities and stories.”
That may be why Cal Poly fits.
The job gives Henderson story, systems, strategy, and a campus with room to grow. It gives him a place where football can find a new trajectory, Olympic sports can keep winning, and the scholar-athlete mission can remain central.
For a film nerd building an athletics department, that may not be a bad first scene.
